October in the Arb

I've been resting a troublesome foot and so it has been weeks since I've taken a good walk in the Arb (the Carleton College Cowling Arboretum). Today I could not stay away, and so I walked gently for two and half miles through the eastern side of the Lower Arb. While the trees are more spectacular in town, where there are many brilliant maples, autumn in the Arb has its own mellow beauty -- the beauty of dried grasses and hard or fluffy seed pods, of shimmering milkweed floss, of rusty oaks and burgundy sumac and the sparkle of low sun skimming across the prairie.

Midsummer Prairie - But Where Are the Bees and Butterflies?

Yesterday I took a long, leisurely walk through prairie and oak savanna habitats in Carleton College's Cowling Arboretum. It was a day that seemed to presage autumn, with moderate temperatures and a good breeze pushing clouds that occasionally looked stormy, though we got no rain.

Compass plant is the tallest flower on the scene, routinely reaching
 5-6' or more.

Lush mix of grasses and flowering plants

I think this is hoary vervain (Verbena
 stricta).  I'm sure someone will let me know if it's not.

Purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) and grasses blowing in the wind

But where were the bees and butterflies? Granted, it was a windy day, which probably accounts for a good part of the quiet, but at least low down among the thick stems I would have expected to see the landscape busy with insect activity -- but I barely saw any.

In fact, I've seen very few butterflies or bees at all this year. At home, my flowering thyme, bee balm and Joe Pye weed should be humming with bees, but I've seen only a couple here and there, and a couple of butterflies. There are many factors at play, including our cold spring, but something certainly doesn't feel right.

Rereading Laura Ingalls Wilder - as a Birder

I happily read Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" series at least a couple of times as a kid and again as my children got to suitable ages. Recently, having encouraged Dave to read them since he never had, I picked them up again myself.

I find myself reading the story of this sturdy, closely knit pioneer family's travels and travails in the last quarter of the 19th century with new eyes -- the eyes of a birdwatcher, aspiring naturalist and conservationist who newly understands the role that grasslands have played in the North American circle of life and the sad fact that we have been plowing up more and more of them -- starting in the very times of which she wrote -- until native grasslands are almost gone from huge areas of the U.S. landscape.

Though Wilder, with the help of her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, wrote these books decades after the times she describes, they are as close to a contemporary eyewitness perspective on the pioneer experience in those places and times as we have in our popular literature. While the focus of the stories is on family life, she captures a wonderful amount of detail of the world they inhabited.

1939 edition of By the Shores of Silver Lake,
illustrations by Helen Sewell and Mildred Boyle
Photo credit: Bramblewood Fashion blog

Here is one passage, so evocative of the land and its wealth of bird life. Imagine yourself in Dakota Territory in about 1880, newly arrived in a railroad shanty town where your father has taken a temporary job as shopkeeper while your family looks for an ideal homesteading site. Almost 13 years old, you are exploring the lakeshore with your sisters on a summer afternoon:

Laura and Mary and Carrie walked slowly along on the green shore by the rippling silver-blue water, toward the wild Big Slough. The grasses were warm and soft to their feet. The wind blew their flapping skirts tight against their bare legs and ruffled Laura's hair. Mary's sunbonnet and Carrie's were tied firmly under their chins, but Laura swung hers by its strings. Millions of rustling grass-blades made one murmuring sound, and thousands of wild ducks and geese and herons and cranes and pelicans were talking sharply and brassily in the wind.

All those birds were feeding among the grasses of the sloughs. They rose on flapping wings and settled again, crying news to each other and talking among themselves among the grasses, and eating busily of grass roots and tender water plants and little fishes. 

The lake shore went lower and lower toward Big Slough, until really there was no shore. The lake melted into the slough, making small ponds surrounded by the harsh, rank slough grass that stood five and six feet tall. Little ponds glimmered between the grasses and on the water the wild birds were thick.

As Laura and Carrie pushed into the slough grasses, suddenly harsh wings ripped upward and round eyes glittered; the whole air exploded in a noise of squawking, quacking, quonking. Flattening their webbed feet under their tails, ducks and geese sped over the grass-tops and curved down to the next pond. ...

The soft, cool mud sucked around her ankles as she stood, and before her the little ponds glimmered among the tall grasses. She wanted to go on and on, into the slough among the wild birds, but she could not leave Mary and Carrie. So she turned back with them to the hard, higher prairie where waist-high grasses were nodding and bending in the wind, and the short, curly buffalo grass grew in patches.

Along the edge of the slough they picked flaming red tiger lilies, and on higher ground they gathered long branching stems of purple buffalo bean pods. Grasshoppers flew up like spray before their feet in the grasses. All kinds of little birds fluttered and flew and twittered balancing in the wind on the tall, bending grass stems, and prairie hens scuttled everywhere. 

A few weeks later, it's autumn:

The weather grew colder and the sky was full of wings and great birds flying. From East to West, from North to South, and as far up into the blue sky as eyes could see, were birds and birds and birds sailing on beating wings.

 At evening down they came endlessly from the sky, sliding down long slopes of air to rest on the water of Silver Lake.

There were great, gray geese. There were smaller, snow-white brant that looked like snow at the water's edge. There were ducks of many kinds, the large mallards with a shimmering of purple and green on their wings, the redheads, the bluebills, the canvasbacks, and teals and many others whose names Pa did not know. There were herons, and pelicans, and cranes. There were little mud-hens, and the small hell-divers [grebes -- I had to look that one up!] that peppered the water thickly with their little black bodies. When a shot cracked, hell-divers up-ended and vanished quicker than winking. They went far down in the water and stayed there a long time.

At sunset the whole large lake was covered with birds speaking in every kind of bird's voice to each other before they went to sleep for a night of rest on their long journey from north to south. The winter was driving them; the winter was coming behind them from the north.

-- By the Shores of Silver Lake, by Laura Ingalls Wilder  (c) 1939, renewed 1967.

Wilder's writing puts you right there -- hearing the sounds of thousands of birds, and feeling the wind against your bare legs and the warm grass and soft mud under your bare feet. I'll leave you with those passages, for now, but I may be back with more. Though the books reflect some historical views on Native Americans by European settlers (held noticeably less by the main character, Laura, than by certain others around her) that can be disturbing from a modern perspective, they are well worth reading at any age.

Western Grebes, North Dakota 2014

Koester Prairie Dedication - with Henslow's Sparrow

This morning I was so happy to attend the dedication ceremony for the Koester Prairie site near Dennison in Rice County, Minnesota, as part of the new Prairie Creek Wildlife Management Area. This 460-acre tract of native prairie/grassland and dry hill oak savanna, grazed but never plowed, has been in the Koester family since the 1940s. They've cared for it as wonderful stewards of the the treasure it is -- "one of the largest expanses of grassland remaining in the region," according to the Trust for Public Land's Prairie Creek WMA web page.

After a nearly five-year process working with the Minnesota DNR, the Trust for Public Land, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Cannon River Watershed Partnership, and other groups and individual advocates, at last the land was purchased by the Trust for Public Land and transferred to the DNR, which will manage the land. Today's dedication ceremony represents the culmination of this lengthy process, ensuring the Koester family's dream that Koester Prairie will be maintained for future generations to enjoy as a source of inspiration and renewal, as I believe family spokesman Craig Koester put it in his moving remarks this morning.

Henslow's Sparrow

The rare Henslow's sparrow, decreasing in recent decades largely due to habitat loss, and listed as endangered in Minnesota, is resident here in the summer. The Henslow's sparrow prefers a large expanse of grassland, so you're not going to find it in just any old grassy field. And one thing I've learned as a birder is that when a bird prefers a certain habitat, that's exactly where you'll find it, and most likely not somewhere else. I spent about 20 minutes this morning with not another human soul in sight, watching this bird calling on its territory. Like clockwork, about every five seconds, it lifted its head to sing its quick, two-syllable, metallic-sounding song: "tsi-lick"!

Henslow's Sparrow singing

At Koester Prairie, if you climb the rise from the road and go down the other side, you are in almost a grass bowl, surrounded on three sides by a grassy expanse that climbs to the horizon. It's a wonderful setting for creatures like the Henslow's that are uncomfortable near large trees or human-made structures. Restoration work continues on the site, including control of buckthorn, wild parsnip, and Queen Anne's lace. The bird seen in the photos above was making good use of a buckthorn sapling today, though: With winds picking up, it was the sturdiest perch around.

I think it's very important to be aware that funding for this important conservation land purchase, and others like it, comes from the Outdoor Heritage Fund (one of the funds created by the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment passed by Minnesota voters in 2008) as recommended by the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council, as well as from the Critical Habitat license plate program (more formally called the Reinvest in Minnesota -- RIM -- Critical Habitat Program).

Koester family members gather for a photo

Dedication attendees climb the hill for a prairie tour

More information about the Koester land's history and its notable wildlife and plant offerings is available here:

• Minnesota DNR news release, Jan. 6, 2014
• Pioneer Press / twincities.com article by Dave Orrick, Jan. 7, 2014
• Friends of Prairie Creek Wildlife Management Area website
• Trust for Public Land website's Prairie Creek WMA page

Dan Tallman recently posted some great photos of a Henslow's sparrow in Carleton College's Cowling Arboretum, where it has been regularly heard and seen on the restored prairie there. (I was pleased to be able to find it for a Carleton reunion group I accompanied on a bird walk last weekend.) His post discusses the population decline and notes the importance of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in its recent partial recovery.

CRP land itself is now in decline due to competing economic incentives, as I mentioned in my recent post, Musings on Grass and Economics. Thus, it is all the more important to support and facilitate land acquisitions like the one we celebrated today.

Musings on Grass and Economics

Dave and I attended the wonderful Potholes and Prairie Birding Festival in Carrington, North Dakota, June 11-15, and then headed south and farther west to Pierre, South Dakota, and the Missouri River to do more birding on our own. I'll post separately about some of the great birds and other sights we saw. But first, I feel impelled to write about grass. Grass -- and economics.

Prairie and pothole country, central North Dakota

I've written before about our vanishing grasslands (for example, the fact that only two percent of the original, pre-European-settlement tall-grass prairie in Minnesota remains, in fragmented and isolated pockets) and the profound effect the loss of that habitat is having on grassland birds like bobolinks, meadowlarks, and many others. With that consciousness firmly in mind, this trip was both elating and sobering.

Site where we saw a Sprague's Pipit "skylarking"

It was exhilarating and reassuring to see that miles upon miles of empty, rolling grasslands do still exist in some places -- to look around and breathe the clean air and see almost nothing but prairie and sky in every direction.

A never-cultivated prairie area on "school land" in North Dakota

So it was elating, but it was also sobering. That's because although much remains in some areas, grasslands are being converted to croplands at a pace not seen for decades. Record prices of corn and other commodities are leading many landowners to take land out of grazing or out of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Almost everywhere we went, we could see what we were told by our guides were newly cultivated and planted fields.

Abandoned houses are a common site in the Northern Plains

Once sprayed and cultivated, even if the land is eventually turned back to a more natural state, and despite any restoration efforts (helpful though they can be), it will never have the rich mix of native plants that once existed. A prairie plowed is a prairie lost. If one believes that the current demand for corn-based ethanol will be a short-lived phenemenon, as many do, it's particularly painful to think of these lands being converted for short-term gain, and their original inherent habitat and grazing value not regained in probably many lifetimes.

American White Pelicans in flight in prairie-pothole region, North Dakota

Grazing is another traditional economic use for grasslands, of course. We heard from our birding guides and workshop instructors -- including prairie expert Stephen R. Jones -- that grazing (ideally by migrating bison, but also acceptably by well-managed cattle herds)  is essential for the maintenance of healthy grasslands, as is fire. Without these controls, invasive species move in and you get an inevitable progression of the grassland ecosystem toward more shrubs and trees. 

Grass and sky, North Dakota

Grass-fed beef and bison are increasingly popular food choices these days, which is an encouraging development for the future of grasslands. However, we also heard from knowledgeable people that in the modern era it's just plain easier to be a crop farmer than a rancher. When you ranch, you are responsible for the well-being of the animals year-round, while crop farmers can go to Florida in the wintertime if they like. And in the Dakotas, some winter respite is quite naturally welcomed by many.

Bison above the Missouri River near Pierre, S.D.

So it's evident that economic benefit is a hugely important consideration in how land is used or set aside. We can't just wring our hands and wish people would nobly leave the grasslands unplowed. People who live in this important ecosystem still need to support their families and aspire to a decent quality of life. Economic incentives -- whether in the form of new or different subsidies, and/or the creation of new land conservancies, and/or the sale of conservation easements, and/or rising demand for grass-fed beef and bison, or other incentives -- will be an essential consideration in saving these lands, if they're to be saved. It's an issue I'll continue to follow closely. And I hope to return many times to this beautiful region.

High country near Pierre, S.D.

Pasqueflowers

Over the course of several springs, I have seen my fellow Northfielder Rob Hardy mention his delight in and expeditions in search of pasqueflowers, but until around this time last year, I had never seen them. It's a native plant, Anemone patens, also sometimes known as prairie crocus, windflower, and prairie smoke. I'm charmed to learn that it is South Dakota's state flower. It's one of the earliest flowers to bloom in the spring, appearing in low clumps here and there in dry or sandy soils. It's native to much of the north central and northwest United States.

Dave and I saw these pretty specimens last Saturday at a prairie remnant located a few miles northeast of Northfield.

I'm always interested in names and their origins. Pasque is an old word for Easter or Passover (think paschal lamb), which is a natural association because of the plant's blooming time, but apparently this was an adaptation of the earlier name for the European version of this flower, originally called passeflower, from passefleur, simply meaning pass/surpass + flower in Old French. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pasqueflower).

You can read more about pasqueflowers in Minnesota on the Minnesota Wildflowers and Minnesota Seasons websites.

Glorious Late Summer in the Arb

I took a wonderful 4+ mile walk this morning around much of the Long Loop of the Lower Arb at Carleton College's Arboretum. I only had my phone for a camera, but here is a taste of the late summer views.

Meadow yellow with goldenrod

Big Bluestem prairie grass, also known as Turkey Foot (see why?)

I was glad to see monarch butterflies on the liatris

Bur oak acorns on the grassy path, crunchy underfoot

Wild grapes looked ripe

We've got at least a week of seriously hot weather ahead. The early morning is a good time to get outside and take in the colors of late summer. Stay hydrated and don't overdo it!

Prairie Flowers at St. Olaf Natural Lands

Today was such a gorgeous day -- downright chilly by normal July standards, but thoroughly refreshing and invigorating. I hadn't been over to the St. Olaf College natural lands for quite a while, and decided to visit the prairie restoration loop, which proved to be a sea of yellows and purples.

As has been typical this year, I hardly saw any butterflies and just a few bees. In the photo below, you can see orange pollen building up on the bee's "pollen basket" on its leg. The flower is purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea).

The tall yellow sunflower-like plant below is compass plant (Silphium laciniatum). The common name comes from the tendency of the lower leaves to align their edges in a north-south direction. The compass plant is said to be very long-lived, surviving as long as a century. Botanists use the term forb for herbs (non-woody plants) that are not grasses or grasslike, so the clover above and compass plant below would both be forbs.

I'm very much a beginner at dragonfly identification, but it looks to me as if the one below is a twelve-spotted skimmer (Libellula pulchella). I've been seeing these quite often in recent outings. Today they zigged and zagged along the path ahead of me, rarely landing or staying long in a good spot for me to get a photo, so I was pleased to be able to get this one.

The forecast in southeastern Minnesota is for quite a few more pleasant days ahead, with highs only in the 70s F. and nightly lows mostly in the 50s. That's great sleeping weather, and perfect for getting out and about. Enjoy!

The Delight of Dickcissels

I first met the dickcissel last summer. We had been visiting a prairie remnant weekly for several weeks to monitor several bluebird nestboxes placed along an access road there. We'd become used to hearing field sparrows, clay-colored sparrows, song sparrows and the occasional distant KWUNK of a pheasant, when suddenly one day in June there was this new, very distinctive, rhythmic SONG demanding to be noticed! The first week it seemed to be coming from just one bird, but the next week it was all around us. I've been a fan of the dickcissel ever since.

Dickcissel male, singing his heart out

I wrote about dickcissels shortly afterward -- such as how they are one of the latest birds to arrive on breeding grounds in Minnesota, which is why we hadn't heard them in April or May.

Dickcissel male - so handsome

For the past couple of weeks the dickcissels have been posing beautifully for us. This week we were there in the morning, rather than our usual evening, and the light was terrific, so I thought I'd share these new photos.

Female dickcissel - with delicate yellow coloring

Bobolinks and Our Vanishing Grasslands

Male bobolink, McKnight Prairie, Goodhue County

The bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) is one of my husband Dave's favorite birds. Whenever we are in suitable habitat  -- grasslands -- his ears and eyes are open for them, and it's usually the ears that find them first. Bobolinks have a rich, varied, burbling, sometimes buzzing song. David Sibley, in his Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, describes it as "a bubbling, jangling, rising warble with short notes on wide pitch range." Roger Tory Peterson, in his Eastern Birds field guide, describes it as "ecstatic and bubbling, starting with low reedy notes and rollicking upward." Several samples of bobolink song can be heard here.

The Dennis Rodman of birds: Male bobolink, Rice County 

The male bobolink in breeding plumage is the only American bird that is black underneath and has white on its back (not just its wings). The straw-colored patch on the back of the head, which often looks thick and furry (but not always, as can be seen in the photo below), is usually the first thing I spot that tells me that I am seeing a bobolink. The female and the nonbreeding male are drabber and buffy in color. The bobolink is one of the Icterids (Icteridae), the songbird family that also includes the New World orioles, meadowlarks, blackbirds, cowbirds, and grackles. Its diet consists of seeds and insects.

Male bobolink, Rice County near New Prague

As grassland habitat has been lost, the populations of grassland-dependent birds, mammals and insects have dwindled. Meadowlarks and bobolinks are among the grassland birds that are harder to find than they once were. Bobolinks have the additional threat of being shot as agricultural pests in their wintering grounds thousands of miles to our south in central South America. Earlier hay mowing than in earlier times also threatens their reproduction; they nest on the ground in tall grass, so they are vulnerable when that grass is cut before the young birds leave the nest.

In Minnesota, less than two percent of the original (pre-European settlement) 18 million acres of native prairie, which covered one-third of the state, remains. What has been lost has been converted to row-crop agriculture and other human uses. The little that remains is scant and patchy, rather than forming large contiguous areas that provide the best habitat for those that depend on it. The enormity of this loss is displayed in this map from the Minnesota DNR, showing in yellow and tan the native prairie distribution in the second half of the 19th century, with the surviving remnants shown in red. It makes me want to weep.

This map can be seen on page 7 of the Minnesota Prairie Conservation Plan, published in 2011 by the Minnesota Prairie Plan Working Group, which included members from the Minnesota DNR, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Nature Conservancy and other interested organizations. Click on the image above to see a larger version, and follow the text link above to learn more about a vision for prairie and grassland habitat acquisition, restoration and enhancement in Minnesota. 

The future of creatures like the bobolink depends on our doing what we can to preserve and restore the grassland habitat that is part of our great natural heritage.

Here are some additional resources:

• http://mn.audubon.org/guide-urban-bird-conservation/grasslands-including-prairie
• http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/snas/prairie_description.html
• http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2013/02/satellite-study-documents-vast-loss-midwest-grasslands

Addendum: After posting this, I came across a blog post called Where Are the Bobolinks, published only yesterday on the excellent birding blog One Jackdaw Birding. I recommend it.